One of “Jamie’s Rules” from “My Doggie Says…Messages from Jamie: How a dog named Jamie ‘talks’ to her people,” is “It’s OK to be afraid sometimes.” You can see some other “Jamie’s Rules” here.
After I finished writing My Doggie Says…, I went back through Jamie’s “messages,” asking myself, “What do Jamie’s communications tell me about her philosophy of life?” Each of Jamie’s Rules is based on some of Jamie’s messages.
Jamie, at age 10 1/2, when the book was written, had worked her way through some, but not all of her fears. But Callie, as an eight-month-old puppy, is still working her way through a lot of fears.
Jamie’s greatest fear, as an adult dog, was thunder storms. When I was writing My Doggie Says…, we had a huge thunder storm, and Jamie absolutely freaked out. She ran outside, and then raced back inside to avoid the heavy downpour of rain. She jumped up on the bed. Then she jumped down and tried to dig a hole in the carpet. She was just miserable.
We solved the problem by going into the den, closing all the windows & doors and turning the TV volume up to drown out the sound of the thunder.
Callie, though, as a puppy, is still working through a lot of different fears. It’s fascinating to watch her do this. When she confronts something she doesn’t understand, she stops and watches closely and tries to figure out what’s happening. You can just see the “wheels going around” in her mind as she tries to understand.
In these situations, I am always careful to let her have time to deal with her fears.
Here’s a fun little video clip of Callie when she was learning to swim. You see her being afraid of the (very small) waves, pawing at them to size them up. Then she tries a second time to reach out to the toy she’s retrieving. But then, instead of swimming to the toy, she grabs the rope and pulls the toy ashore. Now, of course, she’s pretty much past this fear, and she jumps right in to swim.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXotuLVPzxc
Almost every time I take Callie outside to pee, she stops to figure out what’s going on. The other day, there were lots of sounds — several birds chirping and squawking, a car driving down the street, the sound of workmen hammering a few doors away, and the sound of leaves rustling in the wind. It took Callie a minute or so of standing quietly and letting her senses work to process all of this and get comfortable proceeding to the side yard.
Last weekend, at Lake Arrowhead, Callie and I went out in the dark for a little pee walk. Through the dark night, Callie saw the outline of a toppled-over trash can. At first, she didn’t know what she was seeing. She stopped cold and just looked. And then, interestingly, she pulled me toward the can, overcoming any fear she had and moving in to check it all out.
Another time, at a fundraising event at Lake Arrowhead, Callie stopped for several minutes to figure out a chamber music quartet. And another time, we went for a walk in the night, and the full moon was casting strong shadows on the street. Callie stopped for a minute to get comfortable with the moon shadows.
So, it’s OK for dogs to be afraid sometimes, and your dog will appreciate it if you help it — or at least give it time — to overcome its fears.
